The Mar-a-Lago Dunning-Kruger moat
In a call so brazenly stupid I almost feel sorry for them, morons on alt-right social media sites are calling for a “patriot moat” to surround Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to prevent him from being arrested. This clownish buffoonery is brought to you by the same gun nut logic that makes individual gun owners think they can take on the United States military.
Far-rightwing forum Trump supporters were quick to make suggestions about how they could back Trump and stop authorities from taking him into custody. “Surround Mar-A-Lago or wherever he currently is and prevent ‘law enforcement’ from entering,” one delusional MAGA idiot wrote on the website known as “patriots.win” under the main thread, “Trump to be arrested on Tuesday. Our government is lost.”
Many comparisons are being made between this moat business and the January 6 insurrection. But this time one user was at least smart enough to question the legality of some of the threats being made. “lmao,” he wrote, “good idea, let’s plan crimes on this publicly accessible website.” Much of the evidence used to criminally indict and convict January 6 traitors was taken from just such open declarations on social media.
The reality, of course, is that the human moat idea is absolutely nothing like the January 6 insurrection. January 6 was a shameful and disgusting day in which a mob of thugs and fools attacked America’s sacred Capitol building in the midst of the peaceful transition of power, one of its most important democratic transactions. This moat nonsense is a Kumbaya of transcendental silliness. There is nothing and no one that is sacred inside Mar-a-Lago. The cretins joining hands around it would be swept aside by one or two armored police vans. Trump would be taken under such conditions without much fuss.
A lot of the hullabaloo stems from Trump’s claim that he will be arrested today which is Tuesday as I write this. But it seems Trump reached that conclusion as the result of a flawed reading of the news. There is nothing to suggest that Tuesday will be the day. The truth is that no one outside district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office knows the day or the hour.
Of course, it is doubtful that anything remotely approaching sufficient numbers will appear in Florida (or anywhere else Trump might be) to make a moat around a fireplug, let alone Mar-a-Lago. At a recent protest put on by New York’s Young Republican Club, for example, members of the press outnumbered protesters.
Meanwhile a box truck is circling Mar-a-Lago with the words “Tick Tock Trump” expertly emblazoned on the side and a picture of Trump sitting in a jail cell with Hillary Clinton peeking in on the back panel. The clock certainly seems to be ticking for Trump. When zero hour is no one knows, but we can derive much entertainment in the meantime from idiocies like this Dunning-Kruger moat insanity. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.